20 Percent Of Workers Spend Thanksgiving With Co-Workers

Thanksgiving. A time to look back and celebrate good health with family, friends and Lady Gaga. But apparently some cannot get enough of those they spend their days with and plan on partaking in cornucopias of food with co-workers. A new CareerBuilder survey found that 19 percent of workers plan to celebrate the holiday with their workplace peers either in or out of the office.

While the idea of this is wonderful, because it sure beats spending the day alone, I'm concerned that the long-standing tradition of returning to work and regaling your co-workers with stories of crying mothers, burnt pecan pies, senile uncles and overly dry turkey will be lost. If you're going to live these epic tales together, then who I ask, do we get to share these stories with? Fortunately, if you're video-taping any of it, the Internet.

The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,696 U.S. hiring managers and human resource professionals and 4,384 U.S. workers (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) ages 18 and over.

From those surveyed, 23 percent of workers aged 25-34 said they'd be spending the day with co-workers, which seems to make sense, especially if you consider that there are probably more young adults in that age group who may not be able to travel home or who haven't started a family of their own just yet.

Geographically speaking, 30 percent of workers in the south were more likely to guzzle down cranberries and turkey with company compatriots, versus only 12 percent of workers in the Northeast who said they'd spend the holiday with their work peers.

I was surprised by the fact that 18 percent of respondents said they will have to work on Thanksgiving day, with those 18-24 being the most likely to be punching in and out. I imagine these are the saviors working at restaurants and grocery stores who bail us out consistently when we're out of green beans and need more Pillsbury croissants.

We also asked, "Who would you rather spend Thanksgiving Day with: co-workers or your family?"

Here's how respondents broke it down:

My family – 90 percent

My co-workers – 1 percent

Neither – 9 percent

Of those who responded "neither," I want to know if they are spending the holiday alone. Or, if they could have written in who they'd actually want to spend it with, who would they have said? My guess would be the likes of Justin Bieber, Martha Stewart or Paula Deen.

For those of you who may just be kicking back with a pizza, here are some other articles on how to rev up your job search during the holiday season:

This survey was conducted online within the U.S. between August 16 and September 8, 2011 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With pure probability samples of 4,384 and 2,696, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/-1.48 and +/-1.89 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.